Spike Lee Says, Harlem is No Longer the Black Capital. Brooklyn is.

The legend-in-his-own-time filmmaker - and native Brooklynite - said that "these old fuddy duddies" may have endorsed Clinton, but Harlem is no longer the capital of black power that it once was.

Brooklyn, which has more blacks than any other place in New York - or the country, for that matter - is increasingly important, he said.

Among the Harlem leaders pushing Hillary Clinton are Congressman Charlie Rangel and former Mayor David Dinkins, though one of the biggest Obama boosters and campaign leaders has been Harlemite State Sen. Bill Perkins.

Apparently accepting, in theory at least, Lee's notion that Brooklyn is replacing Harlem as the Black capital, NPR pointed out that Central Brooklyn is made up of hundreds of thousands of Black people from the Caribbean and Africa; and they are among the strongest of Obama's supporters.

NPR quotes Brookklyn State Asseblyman Hakeemn Jeffries, who says Obama represents a new way of being and thinking that reflects what is happening in Brooklyn.

"When I first ran for office, some people suggested that someone with the name 'Hakeem Jeffries' could never get elected and when I saw someone with the name 'Barack Obama' get elected to the U.S. Senate, it certainly inspired me."

There are many undocumented in Brooklyn, for certain, but there are also many, many longtime first generation Black immigrants and they are transforming Central Brooklyn. The civil servants with mta, in municipal offices, etc.
--Ron